33. The Crumbling House #4
My shoulders curl in, and I swing my feet wildly below the dock.
“But we are the mess of it, Junie, and the mess is where we grow.” His tone is the calm between the ripples. “I already chose a break because I thought it was the right thing to do, and it nearly broke us both. I lost six years of loving you instead of standing in the mess and fighting beside you.”
He folds his left leg in and turns his entire body my way while I stare at the imperfect model. It’s a metaphor for what he’s asking me. He’s not offering perfection. He’s offering to stand in the mess with me and build a life from the ashes of what we’ve overcome.
“And this is what I need you to hear above all else, Juniper Mercer. I love who you were before, but I fell in love with who you’re becoming. You’re leaving because that’s what you’ve been taught. Everyone you love leaves, me included.”
Juniper Mercer is officially a crybaby.
“I’m not asking you to know who you are, Junie.
I’m just asking you to figure it out with me in the room.
I’m asking you to do the work in the same house, not at the same desk.
” He points to the model. “One room. Two desks. You’ll be at yours, and I’ll be at mine, doing my own work.
I won’t make your growth about me, Junie.
I’ll just be the sounding board and shoulder you lean on if you get stuck. ”
He lifts his hand from the death grip he has on the dock, but he quickly shoves it under his thigh. Like he needs the weight to keep from reaching for me.
“And I’m asking you to do the same for me. Don’t watch me become someone from the sidelines. Stand with me in the dirt, plant roots with me, and watch us both grow within the parameters that were always meant to be ours.”
When I don’t budge, he sighs, and the sound scrapes across my raw, exposed heart. “I’m not asking you for forever. I’m asking you to try while we figure out what’s next.”
“Not a promise?” I ask, thumbing the ring I really need to remove. My voice is so small I hardly recognize it.
“No,” he says gently.
“Just—the room.”
“Two desks,” he says. “That’s all I’m asking for, sweetheart. Two desks.”
We sit side by side while the sun bathes everything in shades of pink and gold.
I don’t say yes, but I also don’t say no.
Instead, I scoot to the very edge of the dock and place my bare feet in the brackish water, then close my eyes and allow the water to do that calming shit it does.
After a moment, I hear movement beside me. Then the unmistakable sound of one shoe, then the next, landing on the dock behind us. I crack one eye open just as Cole slips his feet into the water beside mine.
I came to this spot today thinking we were over before we began.
But I’m still here.
And I haven’t promised to stay. Both decisions feel very Junie-coded. So I sit with them. Mull them over. And then realize I can’t decide anything today. The new me needs to make a pros and cons list before reacting.
It feels very mature for Spite-Berry, so perhaps she’s behind me after all.
“Cole.”
“Junie.”
“I’m not calling this fixed.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Hmm,” I hum. “I’m going to see Bea on Wednesday.”
His relief is palpable. “Wednesday. As in, a week from now?”
I nod. Okay, so I just agreed to stay. For one week, not forever.
Not yet.
“That’s great, Junie.”
“And I think I want to start my own firm.” The heat of his stare scorches the side of my face. “Something small. I kind of fell down a rabbit hole the other night and realized how often small businesses are taken advantage of. I think—I think I could help them.”
Whatever power Cole Whittaker holds over me, it drags my gaze to his now.
“You’ll be amazing.” He means it too. It’s there in his eyes.
“I’ll have to work in Charleston some weeks.”
His expression never shifts. “There are a lot of small businesses there, so that makes sense.”
“I’m not ready to talk about the ring.” The confession is merely a whisper kissing air.
He looks at my ring finger. “About the fact that you could’ve taken it off already or the fact that it’s yours and has been since the day Nana Mae told me she was saving it for the woman I love?”
A very undignified scoff exits my mouth as I splutter. “Wha— I don’t know what you mean.”
He bumps my shoulder playfully. “I saw you a few weeks ago in your office. You were playing with it, but your mind was a million miles away. It came off, and you put it right back on.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “Nana Mae was right about the water weight,” I grumble.
“Nana Mae’s right about a lot of things. But we’ll have that conversation, Junie, when you’re ready. Until then, please, just keep it. I don’t even care what finger it’s on. I’m not asking you to commit to it—yet—but it is a ring that lives on you. You should wear it.”
“Okay,” I say because truthfully, removing it feels like a divorce, and I’m not ready to file yet.
We sit while the day fades into night and the stars twinkle like our own secret language.
Cole didn’t flinch.
Two desks. Two people. Light from two directions.
And finally, I think we’re ready to be in the same room.